What, if anything, have the hearings revealed so far about Sotomayor as a Supreme Court justice? What have the hearings revealed about members of the Judiciary Committee?

July 15, 2009

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Public education and perception of Sotomayor has been clouded by the drama of unfolding political theatre. We've learned more about GOP mid-term election strategy than we have about what direction she'll take as a Supreme Court justice. All players - from the White House and their nominee to Democrats and Republicans in the Senate - are at fault for this. Showing a discomforting amount of glee, senior Democratic aides choose punkish anonymity over attribution to brag over the deliberate attempt to force a "boring" event. In that, one has to rankle over the near-hypocrisy of folks who regularly stress civic engagement on one hand, yet on the other encourage the type of political behavior that contributes to lack thereof. Ranking Senate Republicans are even worse with constant, played-out "wise Latina" retorts while fishing for signs of cracked "temperament" - feeding stereotypes of a "hot tempered" Latina with no restraint. Confirmation hearings have now devolved into hydrogenated political puff, the democratic process laughing at itself while everybody simply takes score.

The hearing gets decent marks for a somewhat juicy cerebral discussion on judicial philosophy - emphasize "decent" because the nominee only wants to ride it out. It's assumed we don't want the heady details of case law and decisions; rather than oversight, we get pelted with cleverly slid-in skits of racial innuendo. By the time we get to Sotomayor as legal scholar, time is eaten up with phony portraits of "Sonia the Ideologue."

What we do know for certain is that, despite all of this, she's weathered. She's seasoned. She handles her business and can do it with self-respect and solid face. We may not be able to tell, at the moment, how she'll opine on the Big Bench, but we do know that she'll take it head on with little complaint.

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